the evening. put him on the defensive, which is what fellow republicans wanted the governor to do last night. the governor travels to virginia, to florida, the key swing states where he can hopefully capitalize a statistical dead heat with the president. >>> let's get to our insiders right now. matthew dowd. donna brazile, worked on the campaign for al gore. and nicolle wallace, who worked with the bush campaign. mitt romney came in, spent a lot of time preparing. and it paid off. >> there was some criticism he wasn't doing enough events going in. but they made the calculation which was accurate. moments like this can wipe the slate clean of what's going on in the last month. barack obama had a great month and a half. in one 90-minute period, this race went from a slight obama lead to a dead-even race. by monday morning, this race will be tied. >> a lot of people wondering, donna, a lot of the president's supporters. you see it on twitter and in the blogs, on television last night, where was the president? where was the fight? >> he was a little rusty. after four years, he hasn't been in a d